The opening blowout of Appalachian State was, of course, not a very good gauge for how good Michigan would be this year. The huge loss to Notre Dame felt terrible, but could've been a fluke. And then the Miami game, which had its highs and lows, but Miami being so bad...again it was tough to definitively know anything.
But after this loss to Utah, its pretty clear where things stand. And it's not good at all.
We knew going into today, Michigan was be exposed either positively or negatively. Poor decisions by Gardner which led to more turnovers, inconsistency along the OL, big plays given up by special teams, and seemingly bad coaching all around – all of it results in this Michigan squad looking a team on the brink of the season completely getting away from them.
I'll give the defense credit, they seem to show up ready to play...they even scored...but that's about it. Eventually the offense has to produce something.
Of Michigan's 12 drives, 1 resulted in a made field goal, 3 ended in an interception, 1 in a fumble, 6 ended on the Utah side of the 50 when whatever Michigan was trying to do eventually ran out of gas. Michigan never got into the redzone...which they also weren't able to do against the Irish either. By the time Morris came into the game, down by 16 in a driving rain storm, it was too late to salvage anything. Even after the 2 hour 24 minute weather delay, it was no use.
I don't know what will cure this team. This very well may be the last season of Hoke's Michigan career...I don't know. I can't even speculate about that right now. No matter what, he's going to be the coach for the next 8 games. They can still compete for the Big Ten title...as far as that does seem from a possibility. But I guarantee you it will be mentioned by Hoke in one way or another in the coming days.
Something drastic needs to happen to turn this thing around. You can't continue to blame the new scheme. This offense is broken. This problem is systemic. And it can't be cured in practice or in just a week. This could be a very long season for Michigan.
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